Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Get Organizized!

Many of you are wondering aloud, "How does Brooke Van Poppelen intend to keep up her break-neck pace of success in 2010?"

Well my friends, I am going to let you in on a little secret of the stars: The Dry-Erase Board.

To me, a dry-erase board means business. No longer is it the passive-aggressive communication tool used by 22 year-old housemates who hate one another for not doing the dishes. Nay. It is now a powerful tool in which adults can clearly keep goals listed in front of their face and erase them with ease* once accomplished.

I have yet to succumb to the addictive nature of an Iphone, let alone a Crackberry and for some reason even a planner does nothing more for me than inform me of the things I just failed to show up for.

Many days I have to fill out a dry-erase board to stay on target as my mind is operated by squirrels. Squirrels who have a drinking problem. The more visual and tangible my goals are the better because I often lose track very quickly. With a dry-erase board, I can literally pass out drunk at my desk and wake up face down on my goals. There's just no escaping them with this method!

The old days of keeping tattered notepads, notebooks, scraps of paper, wrappers, napkins and beer coasters in a giant pile of "to-do" is long gone. Presto! I just keep buying more dry-erase boards! They're literally covering every inch of my room but my goals are undoubtedly present and tough to ignore. Like really tough to ignore and sort of in the way... I can't find my laptop and purse underneath all of these boards. Fuck, where are my keys?

Anyhow, this year I have even loftier goals than ever before although admittedly last year's goal of "get up before noon at least 3 days/week" was not that hard to achieve in the first place.

This year phrases like "live with more clarity" and "know thy purpose" are scribbled all over the place along with things like "clean the juicer" ( have you ever owned of of these things? Fan-fucking-tastic until you use it once and have to clean the son of a bitch and extract carrot and kale pulp from the 15 pieces you have to disassemble and reassemble each time you want 6 ounces of juice.) Anyway, I let mine go for about 3 months, wrapped it in a plastic bag and have ignored it ever since. I am truly terrified of what sort of compost monster I've created in the dark, dewey recesses of this machine but I'm pretty sure if eaten, could cure you of a venereal disease.

Point being, we should all try something that scares us. Goshdarnit, I am going to find out once and for all just how bad my credit score is. Tiny goals are good to mix in with the big ones too so that you can actually cross something off your list. I'm a big fan of writing something down that I just did which may not have even been a goal but it sure feels good to draw a line through something that's actually happened, intentional or not.

So for all of you, your first goal for 2010 is to go out and get a Dry-Erase Board(s) and join the ranks of brilliant and wildly successful individuals who know better than to set their goals in stone. Erasable marker my friends, erasable marker.



*some goals may take longer than others and in cases such as these a mere finger swipe will not cut it. Simply wet a paper towel and scrub vigorously, but not so vigorously as to accidentally remove a different goal or affirmation from the list.